Evers makes campaign stop in Fort

By Kim McDarison

Gov. Tony Evers addressed a roomful of exuberant supporters Monday evening at the Cafe Carpe, Fort Atkinson. The campaign stop followed one made Monday afternoon in West Allis. 

In Fort Atkinson, some 70 people, which constituted standing room only in the cafe, eagerly awaited the candidate’s arrival after learning that he would be about 15 minutes late. 

He was stuck in Milwaukee’s evening traffic, Democratic Party of Jefferson County Co-Chair Kelli Rowley announced. 

Members of the Democratic Party of Jefferson County used the time to make videos of campaign stop attendees as they shouted their support for the governor and other Democratic candidates running in November. 

Before the governor spoke, signs were handed out which read “Tony and Sara,” with some attendees holding them up is support as the governor arrived. 

Sara Rodriguez is running alongside of Evers for the position of lieutenant governor. 

Introducing Evers, Rowley, said: “I’m honored to welcome someone who’s led our state with great courage and conviction for the past three and a half years. I’m sure many of you worked the phones or walked the turfs or did what you could to help elect Gov. Evers in 2018. Please raise your hand if you are ready to work for Evers in 2022. Jefferson County is here for you Gov. Evers.” 

The statement brought a loud round of applause. 

At the podium, Evers thanked those in attendance for their support. 

He also praised campaigning efforts made by State Rep. Don Vruwink, who was among those in attendance, saying: “I have to have a huge, huge shoutout for Don Vruwink. There’s no-one, including myself, I think, that works harder to get elected than Don Vruwink … I just love his energy and his common sense.” 

Evers cited Vruwink as among his inspirations for bringing common sense and Wisconsin values to the governor’s office. 

“So I’m proud to say that Don and I are a lot alike. He works very hard, but also, … he works harder than me. At the end of the day, that common sense is what drove us as an administration over the last three and a half years,” Evers said. 

Pointing to his administration’s accomplishments, Evers said: “People should be proud of what we’ve accomplished with Don and others.

“We fixed the damn roads, and it hasn’t been easy. It was a bipartisan effort in the Legislature.”

During his term, Evers said, his administration has fixed to-date over 5,000 miles of roads across the state and about 1,500 bridges. 

He stressed the importance of the state’s bridges as a means by which farmers transport their products to market. 

“People don’t think about this a lot, but farmers expecting to get their product to market have to go over bridges, and we had lots of problems in the western part of the state with that,” Evers said. 

He acknowledged his awareness that there were still people in the state who might say, “you didn’t fix mine.” 

“We had eight years of (former Gov.) Scott Walker’s ‘Scott Holes’ to fix and we’ve done the best we can, and we will continue doing that moving forward,” Evers said. 

Evers cited bringing broadband to communities across the state as another achievement, saying: “We’ve brought broadband, high-quality broadband, to over 387,000 households in the state of Wisconsin.” 

He pledged bringing the service to another 300,000 people over the next three years. 

“I know there still might be areas in this county that are still having difficulty, but we’re making good progress and I am hoping by the end of this new term we’ll have that done,” he said. 

Evers shared the story of a small town in northwestern Wisconsin and its desire to bring broadband to the community as an example of the importance of the service. 

He described the topography of the area as “rocky” and with “hills and valleys,” noting that finding someone to install the service to a community of 300 was difficult. 

“No one would come and do that,” he said. 

Four members of the community came forward to spearhead an effort to bring the service to their community. They went before the town board, and the community “threw some money on the table,” Evers said. The community formed a “home service commission,” and was awarded additional resourced by the state. 

Evers said he visited the community and met one of the four individuals.  

Evers said the individual told him, “you know, when I left home today to come and see you, they had just brought broadband to my home.” He said the individual said he cried. 

Said Evers: “Think about that. It’s just like electricity, folks, it’s just like electricity. Everybody needs it, whether it’s for your kids when they are studying, or for businesses. We have a commitment to do that — make sure every single person in the state of Wisconsin has that high-quality broadband.” 

Evers also talked about taxes, saying: “Another thing we’ve been able to do, frankly, is lower some taxes by about 15%. That has created an opportunity for people to save over $45 billion over the last couple years.”

Evers addressed the concept of school funding, noting: “We’ve also brought lots more money for schools,” but, he said, “We have a long way to go. 

“As you know, that’s my background, and I’m always going to be very partial to public education. It’s a cornerstone of our democracy. You can’t shortchange it. 

“We did a lot over the last three years, but it’s not enough. We had eight years of defunding public education by Scott Walker. It’s going to take us another term to get us to where we should be.” 

He said increasing school funding would continue to be a top priority for his administration. 

“We also invested a lot in small businesses in the state of Wisconsin. You know we have about — I think it’s 45 people in Jefferson County that have received our Main Street Bounceback (grant) program, which is a really good, neat program. For $10,000, we will help you go into a vacant storefront. And we’ve had 45 in this county, but we’ve also had, all across the state of Wisconsin, well over 6,000 people we are helping to fill vacant storefronts on Main Streets … whether it’s big cities, small cities, it doesn’t make any difference, and we are going to continue to do that,” Evers said.  

Fifty-two percent of the people in Wisconsin work in small businesses of some sort, Evers said, adding, “We want to make sure that they remain strong. 

“With these types of investments, we’ve been able to keep our unemployment rate — it’s the lowest it’s ever been in the state’s history … and our state’s surplus is as big as it’s ever been, by far, where we are usually in the hole. 

“We have $3-4 billion in Madison, which, frankly, we tried to give back to some people not so long ago, and the Republicans didn’t want to do that because they didn’t want to give me a win in an election year.”

Evers next focused his comments on the upcoming election.  

Evers noted differences between himself and his opponent, Tim Michels, starting with their differing positions on women’s reproductive health. 

Said Evers: “As you know, the U.S. Supreme Court did us no favors. And we have in the state of Wisconsin an 1849 (abortion) law, which, if you think about it, we became a state in 1848. And a year later — somebody must of spent a whole year thinking about what we are going to put in state statutes — he came up with this one. It’s horrible. It’s horrible. Anyway, Wisconsin women became second-class citizens overnight. And we have this law that says it’s illegal for people to perform abortions in the state of Wisconsin. That’s why we have so many people going across the border. That said, it’s a draconian law. And Tim Michels said this law is like a mirror on his belief.”  

Evers said he supported a woman’s ability to make her own choices regarding reproductive health. 

“We will win this race,” Evers said, but in the meantime, he asked those in attendance: “please vote for people who support women’s reproductive rights.”

He noted that while he and Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul have brought a lawsuit challenging the 1849 abortion law, changing the law in Wisconsin is “going to take some time.” 

He said he believed the suit would be successful. He asked voters to remember: “that we have a spring election for Supreme Court in the state of Wisconsin and that lawsuit … will be circling through that court for sometime, and I think it will be after we have a new court.”  

Evers talked about differences between himself and his opponent relative to public school funding. 

Evers is for increasing funding to public schools, but he said, “We have a candidate that’s opposing me that has said that all that is insanity about putting more money into our public schools. It’s insanity. That’s insanity. We have somebody that is taking these most important issues in the state of Wisconsin and flipping them on their head. It’s radical, it’s uncalled for, we’re going to win this race.”

In battling his opponent, Evers said: “We’re up against it. Tim Michels has unlimited resources.” 

Evers told attendees Monday that Michels was spending $1 million a week on television ads. 

“That’s a lot of money. He has lots of money. We can beat him with your hard work; the Don Vruwink way,” Evers said, adding: “I feel confident we are going to win. It’s going to be a close race. Wisconsin is a purple state. I’d love to say it’s a blue state, but it’s a purple state. And Jefferson County is a good example because there are lots of Republicans and lots of Democrats … but it doesn’t matter. It matters who works the hardest.”  

He expressed confidence in help coming from the Jefferson County Democrats. 

“I won by 1 point, 1% last time. We’re going to double that this time,” Evers said.  

“This is going to be a really important race,” he continued, saying it would be won by hard work, including “door-to-door stuff.” 

He asked his supporters to talk to their neighbors, even those who might identify as independent voters and who might not like to talk about politics. 

He said he recognized starting those conversations could sometimes be hard. People are concerned about pursuing their neighbors or potentially damaging a friendship. 

Evers said that while today his neighbors are mostly Democrats, he has been in a position to talk with independent neighbors. 

He said Plymouth was his hometown, adding that it was a community he has never won, further commenting, “It drives me nuts,” but he believed talking with independents, like those in Plymouth, could lead to a situation where they could be “re-influenced” to “vote the right way.” 

“We’re down to Tim Michels here. We have to take some of those chances. We are on the right side. We have a good record to run on,” he said, further describing his opponent as “as far right as I’ve ever seen in the state of Wisconsin. 

“Obviously, he has Donald Trump’s support, so that gives you some idea of where he’s at.” 

Evers, Fort Atkinson Online Q & A

After he spoke, Evers waded into the group to shake hands, make introductions, and pose for photo ops. 

He next sat down briefly with Fort Atkinson Online reporter Kim McDarison and answered three questions: 

Q: Donald Trump’s influences are prevalent in our state of Wisconsin, as they were last gubernatorial election cycle. With those prevalences in place, what will make this campaign different from the last campaign? 

Evers: Certainly I think groups of people in the state of Wisconsin support Donald Trump. I don’t, frankly, even think about him when it comes to running this election. I know he supported my opponent, but I’m more concerned about what my opponent says than what Trump says any day of the week. So, will he be a factor in this race? I don’t know. I would say, he’s lost an election here last time around. I guess if he runs next year, it would be more difficult for him to win. People are tired of divisive rhetoric and pitting people against each other. I don’t think about him much, but do I think there are people in Wisconsin who still support him? Sure. 

Q: Here, we hear a lot of discussion about school financing and specifically voucher programs, which are described as sort of burdening the taxpayer and not aiding the public schools. They serve as a passthrough in support of private schools, so the taxpayer gets a bigger bill, and the public schools get nothing. If we are looking to help fund public schools, what can we do about this situation?

Evers: Certainly we have provided more resources to schools than anytime in the last 20 years. I believe that’s not enough if people are concerned about public schools competing against private schools. Public schools teach everyone, teach every kid that walks through the door, and so I’ll always be supportive of public schools; there’s no question about that. As far as the amount of money going to private schools, I know that we are active in the state around the issue of vouchers. I believe public schools come first because they take everybody.”  

Q: The Legislature this election cycle is similar in its political makeup as the last election cycle. With a Democratic minority, the party has been losing a lot of its legislators because they say it’s hard for them to be effective. How will you build confidence in Wisconsinites that this dynamic can be changed? 

Evers: First of all, people have to realize that probably 90% of the legislation that is passed by the Legislature actually does become law. You know I vetoed 120 bills. There are hundreds of bills that I sign — hundreds. And so, there is probably more unanimity than people realize. I think both political parties probably spend the time talking about where people are divided than where they are together. So, first of all, bipartisanship can happen and will continue to happen. I just think there are some things that are common sense for the state of Wisconsin for people to get behind, and hopefully, yeah, because we will have a Republican Legislature, I will continue to  fight globally against really horrible legislation, but I’m counting on Republicans to be strong about public schools. Every legislator has a public school in their district. Every Republican has a public school in their district. They also face some common issues that they can work together on. Clean water, how’s that a Democratic or Republican issue? It’s not. It’s just a matter of getting people together, stop dividing them. I believe my opponent has taken on positions that will divide people even more, and that’s one of the reasons I believe I will win this race.”